World Applied Sciences Journal 19 (8): 1099-1104, 2012 ISSN 1818-4952 IDOSI Publications, 2012 DOI: 10.5829/idosi.wasj.2012.19.08.6660 Epidemiological Studies of Fasciolosis in Human and Animals at Taif, Saudi Arabia Nabila S. Degheidy and Jamila S. Al-Malki Department of Biology, Science Collage, Taif University, KSA Abstract: A cross-sectional study was used to determine the prevalence of fasciolosis and liver abscessation in imported slaughtered cattle from January 2009 to December 2011 at Al-Taif, KSA. A total of 57,593 cattle were slaughtered and 9,414 (16.3%) livers were condemned due to fasciolosis and abscessation affections. Of the slaughtered cattle, a significantly (p<0.05) higher prevalence of fasciolosis was recorded (8.6%) than abscessation (1.1). Fasciolosis considered the main cause of liver condemnation and was responsible for total liver condemnation in cattle as 52.06%. The economic importance of such infections in terms of lost meat and offal were also estimated as 75000 SR annually. Two hundred sixty one patients suffering from hepatitis were subjecting to full clinical, parasitological and serodiagnostic examinations for detection of fasciolosis in human. Key words: Fasciola gigantic Human Fascioliasis Liver Condemnation Cattle INTRODUCTION importance in parts of South America. A minimum of 350,000 human infections is estimated for the high lands Fasciolosis is an important helminthes disease of Bolivia, with similarly high rates of infection in caused by two trematodes of the genus Fasciola; corresponding areas of Peru; in other South American Fasciola hepatica (temperate liver fluke) and Fasciola countries human infections are sporadic. [8]. Concerning gigantica (tropical liver fluke). The distributions of fasciolosis in Egypt, it was wide spread among both species overlap in many areas of Africa and Asia [1]. herbivorous animals and human fasciolosis was The adult Fasciola inhabits the bile duct and gall bladder considered as a new parasitic health problem [9]. of infected animals causing severe damages which may The majority of cases were from rural areas and few were lead to the death of the animals [2]. The sub-clinical and from urban areas [10]. In recent years, human cases have chronic disease usually results in decreased production been reported from different governorates in Egypt, of meat, milk and wool. Secondary bacterial infections, indicating that the disease is spreading and may become fertility problems and great expenses of anthelmintics a public problem and endemic [11-17]. should be considered [3]. It was shown that the estimated In spite of the presence of a number of problems due annual loss in live stock due to fasciolosis all over the to fasciolosis there is paucity of well-documented world was more than 2000 million dollars [4]. It is stated information on the occurrence of the disease in large that even low rates of fluke infection in cattle can cause ruminants at Al-Taif, KSA. Therefore, the present study significant reduction in performance and infection with was designed with the aims of determining the prevalence 54 flukes/animal resulted in 8-9% reduced weight gain. of fasciolosis and abscessation affecting the liver of Even after the animals are cleared of fluke, the initial slaughtered cattle at Al-Taif abattoir in KSA. Also to impaired performance remains until slaughter [5, 6]. detect the infections of fasciolosis among human sporadic Fasciolosis is now recognized as an emerging human cases using stool analysis and ELISA. disease. The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that 2.4 million people are infected with MATERIALS AND METHODS Fasciola and 180 million are at risk of infection [7]. Human infections with F.hepatica have been reported Cattle Samples: The present study was conducted at from many areas of the world and are of considerable Al-Taif slaughtered house of imported cattle, KSA. Corresponding Author: Nabila S. Degheidy, Department of Biology, Science Collage, Taif University, KSA. 1099
It was conducted from January 2009 to December 2011. parasitological and serodiagnostic examinations for The study populations were cattle of different ages and detection of fasciolosis (infected group). Five non body conditions imported from different countries for infected persons were chosen and subjected to clinical the purpose of meat production. A cross-sectional study and repeated stool analysis and proved to be negative was used to determine the prevalence of fasciolosis in from infection and used as negative control group. imported slaughtered cattle using simple random Complete history and full clinical and stool examinations sampling method. A total of 57,593 cattle were collected were done for the two groups [16]. Five ml blood were from the selected animals to determine the prevalence collected from infected and non-infected groups and sera of fasciolosis in the abattoir. Routine post mortem were separated and kept at-70 until used. inspection of liver and gall bladder of each animal was carried out to check for the presence of Fasciola spp. ELISA: ELISA was used for detection of anti Fasciola Livers were inspected by making multiple deep IgM and IgG antibodies [17-19] and circulating Fasciola incisions of the lobes and making a deep cut with a antigen [20-22]. ELIZA technique was done in laboratory number of small sub-cuts. Gall bladders were opened of King Feisal hospital. using a knife and thoroughly investigated for the presence of Fasciola spp. Daily condemnation of livers Data Analysis: The recorded data during the study period and its percentage due to fasciolosis during the period were entered into Microsoft excel sheet, summarized (2009-2011) in Al-Taif slaughtered house, KSA were and analyzed using SPSS version 16 computer program. recorded. The economic importance of such infections in Data were analyzed using Epi Info version 6 statistical terms of lost meat and offal were also estimated during the software [23] and for further comparison using Chi-square high season of Fasciola infection (July 2009). test at critical probability of p<0. Identification of Fasciola Worms: 60 adult worms were collected from livers, which had active infection, for identification of Fasciola spp.[15]. Investigation and identification of Fasciola spp. were done according to their distinct morphological characteristic following the standard guidelines [14]. Human Samples: Also Two hundred sixty one patients, suffering from hepatitis attending outpatients clinic of some hospitals in Al-Taif were subjected to full clinical, RESULTS From a total of 57,593 slaughtered cattle, 9414 (16.3%) livers were condemned (Table 1 and Fig 1). Fasciolosis was the main cause of liver condemnation and responsible for 52.90% total liver condemnation in cattle (Table 2 and Fig 2). A significantly (p<0.05) higher prevalence of fasciolosis than abscessation was also recorded in cattle liver; with average 8.6% and1.1% respectively. Table 1: The prevalence of fasciolosis and hepatic abscessation among slaughtered cattle Fasciolosis Abscessation ----------------------------------------------- -------------------------------------------- Year No Slaughtered Cattle. No. (%) No. (%) 2009 15,544 1,657 (10.7%) 231 (1.5%) 2010 20,034 1,789 (8.9%) 245 (1.2%) 2011 22,019 1,504 (6.8%) 183 (0.8%) Total 57, 593 4,950 (8.6%) 659 (1.1%) Table 2: The prevalence of condemned livers due to fasciolosis and hepatic Abscessation Condemned livers ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- No. % Disease Cattle No. = 9,414 Fasciolosis 4,951 (52.9%) Hepatic Abscessation 659 (7.55%) 1100
Table 3: Prevalence of cattle fasciolosis recorded in July 2009 in Al-Taif abattoir. No. of slaughtered cattle No. of condemned liver % No. of proportion of condemned liver % Fascioliosis prevalence 2165 234 10.8 75 32 3.46 Fig. 1: The prevalence of fasciolosis and hepatic abscessation among slaughtered cattle Laboratory species identifications of liver flukes samples revealed that all 60 examined worms were F.gigantica. The economic importance of such infections in terms of lost meat and offal were also estimated during the high season of Fasciola infection. The high prevalence of fasciolosis (3.46%) was recorded during July 2009 in cattle (Table 3). The study included 261 patients suffering from sings of hepatitis of them, 2 patients were infected with fasciolosis as indicated by the presence of Fasciola eggs Fig. 2: The prevalence of condemned livers due to in their stools and five of them had IgG and IgM anti Fasciolosis and hepatic Abscessation Fasciola antibodies as proved by ELISA (Table 4). ELIZA technique was done in laboratory of King Feisal Table 4: Prevalence of fasciolosis among 261 Saudi Arabia patients hospital. Assay Patient No. (%) Stool 2 examination (1.31%) 5 ELISA (2.0%) Table 5: ELISA results of anti Fasciola IgM and IgG in infected group sera ELISA ----------------------------------------------------- Cases IgM IgG Infected group 0.147-0.402 0.121-0.260 ±0.060 ±0.053 Control 0.128-0.167 0.115-0.169 non infected group ±0.020 ±0.027 Probability p<0.05 DISCUSSION The findings of the current study showed the prevalence of fasciolosis in slaughtered cattle at Al-Taif, KSA. Cattle had the highest number of condemned livers due to fasciolosis (8.6%), suggesting its parasitic economic importance in domestic ruminants. Indeed, fasciolosis was the main cause for condemnations as shown in table 2, which agreed with Mungube et al. [4]. The total infections rate of fasciolosis in the present study (8.6%) was lower compared with 21.9% in Riyadh governorate abattoir [24]. While the prevalence in Kenya was 0.04%-2.4% [4], this difference in results may be due to the big diameter of KSA, so there are different climatic and ecological conditions, also seasons, sources and 1101
types of animals are involved. Concerning imported Human fasciolosis has been increasingly reported animals in KSA, the infection rate among them with from different areas in the world during the past two Fasciola spp. was 15.1% higher than 4.9% of local animal decades [15-17, 30]. Both stool examination and in Riyadh [24]. The high percentage rates with fasciolosis serological methods as ELISA are applied in the diagnosis and abscessation infections among slaughtered cattle at of fasciolosis in human. The infection rate depending on Al-Taif governorate in the present study were 8.6% and detection of eggs in stool was (1.310) and less than 1.1 % respectively and could be due to the most that depending on detection of IgG and IgM by ELISA slaughtered cattle were imported from Syria, Romania and (2.298). Diagnosis of the disease is mainly carried out by Somalia. These countries were endemic with fasciolosis finding eggs in stool but, it lacks sensitivity since eggs [25]. In Nigeria, 2.9 % condemnation rate of liver due to may not appear during acute and chronic fasciolosis hepatic abscesses was previously Recorded [26, 27], in [25, 27]. In addition, false positive results are accounted the present study the liver condemnation rate due to in stool samples following ingestion of infected livers. So, abscesses was 7.55 % in cattle, compared to 3.8 % in in these conditions serological tests are considered for Bangladesh [28]. Normally, liver abscesses are bacterial confirming infection with fasciolosis [10, 11, 15, 34]. In the based and the infection occurs due to migrating intestinal present study, ELISA was used for detection of (IgM and parasites which pre-optimize the conditions for a IgG) in a trial to evaluate their potential roles for diagnosis secondary bacterial infection [29]. Moreover, hepatitis in of fasciolosis and in assessment of the disease morbidity. slaughter stock was recorded at 1.0 % of slaughtered ELISA was highly sensitive for diagnosis of fasciolosis cattle.this was commonly associated, with liver and detection of both IgG, and IgM may play a role in enlargement manifested by gross rounding edges diagnosis of current infection [27, 31]. ELISA showed (hepatomegaly) and sometimes adhesions to peritoneal excellent sensitivity for diagnosis of human fascioliasis membrane. especially in early stage [11, 27, 30, 34, 35]. The high prevalence of fasciolosis recorded during July 2009 was 3.4, which showed the number of CONCLUSION both total and proportion of livers condemned were 234 out 2165 and 75 out 2165 respectively. The same Fasciolosis is an important helminthes disease in results were recorded previously [3, 4, 27, 32, 33]. livestock in KSA. The study confirmed the prevalence The condemnation of livers at Al-Taif abattoir of fasciolosis in slaughtered cattle. Concerning represents significant economic losses, most livers were epidemiology and diagnosis of human fasciolosis, infected by fasciolosis, deforming programmers coupled ELISA was sensitive for diagnosis of fasciolosis and with good animals husbandry would like be effective in detection of both IgG and IgM. Therefore,there is a need lowering their incidence. Liver condemnation impacted for adequate laboratory investigation for the imported negatively on the economic status of the trades and the animals and good quarantine. Also a dequate meat livestock industry at large. This constituted a inspection in abattoirs in order to reduce wastage and substantial loss to the economy of the slaughter stock identify diseases. owners. The present study revealed that the average cost of liver condemnation as have been reported was REFERENCES estimated as 75,000 SR which equivalent to US $ 20,000 annually, the same results was recorded previously [30]. 1. Mas-Coma, S., M.D. Bargues and M.A. Valero, 2005. Therefore, there is a need for adequate laboratory Fascioliasis and other plant-borne trematodes investigations for the imported animals and good Zoonoses. Int. J. Parasitology, 35: 1255-1278. quarantine in abattoirs in order to reduce wastages and 2. Anosike, J., M. Opara, C. Okoli and I. Okoli, 2005. identify diseases. Prevalence of parasitic helminthes among ruminants The present study revealed that, Fasciola gigantica in Etiti area of Imo State, Nigeria. Animal production was distinguished among 60 examined samples, while research advances, 1: 13-19. F.hepatica was difficult to be differentiated from 3. Daryani, A., R. Alaei, R. Arab, M. Sharif and F.gigantica on morpho-metric and morpho-anatomic H. Dehghanand, 2006. Prevalence of Liver Fluke criteria. This is in agreement with Mas-Coma and Bargues Infections in Slaughtered Animals in Ardabil [6] who reported difficulty to differentiate between the Province, Northwestern Iran. J. Animal and two species. Veterinary Advances, 5: 408-411. 1102
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